


Alright

by RhianthiAlritak



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Can you do a surgically precise spinal cord cut with the force, Canon Divergent, Disabled Character, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Gen, Idk but I'm saying Vaylin can, Major Character Injury, autistic characters, everyone lives au, parenting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-06 11:20:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20290606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RhianthiAlritak/pseuds/RhianthiAlritak
Summary: Sometimes things that seem bad turn out alright.





	Alright

**Author's Note:**

> Khavni doesn't appear in this, but Rhianthi is dissociating fairly heavily throughout.

It was over.

They had won.

All she had to do was make a decision.

Rhianthi sighed, her mind elsewhere, thoughts focused on home.

"Someone has to take the throne." Everyone had told her that. "Go. Tannada and I will tend to her." Lana had intended to be reassuring she was certain, but her agony and grief and cut through Rhianthi's mental shields, compounding her own.

It was happening here too.

There was a tension thick in the air, feeding her anxieties, tearing away at her guard, and the concern radiating from both Senya and Arcann would have been obvious, even to someone without her "gift".

She refused to be what everyone feared she would become.

"They're waiting," Senya prompted, drawing Rhianthi from her thoughts, "tell them, Commander, does Zakuul have a new empress?"

"People of Zakuul" she felt the words escape her mouth, felt the speech she had rehearsed in her mind so many times find its way to fruition, but she didn't think on it.

Her mind was still at the fighting that had occurred on Odessen.

With Vette, and Torian.

And Yuo'ie.

"The Eternal Alliance."

A speech ended, an alliance declared, and any semblance of composure lost immediately.

Vette was fine.

Torian was fine.

Vaylin had let them both live.

But that wasn't an act of mercy.

No.

She had let them live with one specific intent, that Rhianthi would suffer. Yuo'ie had torn herself from her hiding place, eyes wide with fear and anger, "leave mama's friends alone!"

The grin that had spread itself across Vaylin's face recalled itself in her mind. She waved it away. "You didn't tell me you had a daughter. That's not very nice you know."

"Don't."

"Oh don't worry, I won't kill her."

"Please, don't."

"That would be too easy. Over too quickly I think."

"I'm begging you, please."

"Hmm let's see, what should I break first I wonder...oh...I know!"

There had been a sickening crack, a noise she'd never forget, and Vaylin had laughed, and tossed the girl away.

Tannada had been the one to catch her, to lower her safely to the ground. She'd have to thank the Jedi, she supposed. For the second time, she owed the woman a debt.

But her speech was completed, shakey as her voice had been. An alliance was declared. And she needed to return to Odessen, to see her daughter. "Hang in there Yuo'ie. Mama will be there soon."

* * *

Tannada stood, wiping the sweat from her forehead, and replacing the veil that hid her residual eye sockets from view.

The miraluka woman removed it, Lana had noticed, whenever she needed to focus on something difficult, even dangerous.

"I've done all I can for her." Her voice was soft, compassionate, even when speaking to a sith, a trait most of the jedi Lana had met failed to possess.

"I'm sensing a 'but'."

"Yes." She hesitated, biting at her lower lip.

"She will wake up, yes?"

"In a few minutes, yes. But there's a couple things I need to discuss. With her mother."

"Of course."

There was an uncomfortable silence between them.

Tannada was visibly tense, whatever she had to say was by all indications, not good."Do try to relax by the time Rhianthi gets here."

"Of course..." she paused "I think I might go to the enclave for some time, do call me if anything changes."

* * *

"Commander! Welcome back!"

"Out of my way!" She snapped at the bothan recruit who had greeted her, wincing internally as she saw him shrink back at her words. But she wouldn't stop to apologize. She needed to see Yuo'ie. She needed to see her daughter.

Her mind drifted back to Yuo'ie as she boarded the lift to the alliance command base. Back to the fear and agony in her daughter's eyes as Vaylin had lifted her into the air, and severed her spinal cord without even lifting a finger.

She shook it away.

"Rhianthi." A familiar voice drew her from her swirling thoughts. Tannada stood before her, more calm than she had expected. A good sign. Yuo'ie was alive. "We...need to talk."

"Is she awake?"

"Yes. She's been asking for you...but there's something we need to-"

"She's never going to walk again, is she?"

"No...the damage done was very precise, almost surgical. There was nothing I could do, I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize." The words had been sharper than she intended. "She's alive. That's what I care about. Take me to her."

"Of course."

She was surprised when Tannada took her in the direction of her quarters as opposed to the medical labs that doubled as a hospital of sorts. "We moved her here once we were cleared to do so. She was more comfortable away from the wounded." She explained. "Rhianthi, she's a force empath."

"I know."

"I thought you might. Have you worked with her? On the training she'll need for it, I mean."

"Not yet..." If Tannada hadn't already sensed her regret, she did now. Perhaps if she had focused on that, on helping her daughter learned to build a wall in her mind to keep people's unwanted emotions out, Yuo'ie wouldn't have revealed herself.

She had felt everything at Odessen, even with her walling.

And she knew Yuo'ie had felt it too.

The Jedi didn't chastise her, she never did, instead she simply knocked on the door they had stopped at. More of a polite gesture than anything, these were Rhianthi's quarters after all.

The door opened, and the wide white eyesof her daughter lit up immediately.

"Mama!" A pause, "mama, you're not sad. I'd know if you were sad!" Another pause. "Why are you crying?"

She couldn't stop the tears, leaning close to hold the girl in her arms. "Yuo'ie...oh Yuo'ie..."

"Mama," Yuo'ie said softly, almost with amusement, "mama, I can't feel my legs."

"I know..."

"Is that why you're crying, mama? Cause I don't mind!" There was a certain pride to the girl's tone.

"You don't...mind? Yuo'ie..."

"I don't mind." More firmly this time. "I can't walk." Rhianthi relaxed slight, so she already knew. "But mama's friends are alive! And I'm alive!" A pause "did I do the right thing, mama?"

Rhianthi felt tears begin to well up once again. "Yes." She said softly, "I'm proud of you, Yuo'ie. I'm so proud of you."

She let the smile in Yuo'ie's eyes imprint itself in her memory.

Things were going to be alright after all.


End file.
